The evolution of computers and networking technologies from high-cost, low performance data processing systems to low cost, high-performance communication, problem solving, and entertainment systems has provided a cost-effective and time saving means to lessen the burden of performing every day tasks such as correspondence, bill paying, shopping, budgeting information and gathering, etc. For example, a computing system interfaced to the Internet, by way of wire or wireless technology, can provide a user with a channel for nearly instantaneous access to a wealth of information from a repository of web sites and servers located around the world. This information is accessible to the user through actively querying a search engine and/or traversing through related links.
Typically, the information available from websites and servers is accessed by way of a web browser executing on a web client (e.g., a computer). For example, a web user can deploy a web browser and access a web site by entering the web site Uniform Resource Locator (URL) (e.g., a web address, an Internet address, an intranet address, . . . ) into an address bar of the web browser
In some instances, a user knows the URL to the site or server that the user desires to access. In such situations, the user can access the site, as described above, by way of entering the URL in the address bar of the browser and connecting to the desired site. In other cases, the user will know a particular site that such user wishes to access, but will not know the URL for such site. To locate the site, the user can simply enter the name of the site into a search engine to retrieve such site. In most instances, however, users desire to obtain information relating to a particular topic and lack knowledge with respect to a name or location of a site that contains the desired information. To locate such information, the user can employ a search function (e.g., a search engine) to facilitate locating the information based upon a query. Due to an increasing amount of users becoming sophisticated with respect to the Internet, searching has become a massively important functionality.
Networks (e.g., the Internet) and computing devices have also enabled users to quickly communicate with one another through utilization of electronic messaging (e.g., email). More particularly, users can specify a subject within a subject line and generate a body of a message. The message can then be delivered nearly instantaneously to specified users. Furthermore, electronic messaging can be utilized to transfer files from a first computer to a second computer through attaching a file to an email message. Due to ease of use and ease of access, email utilization is commonplace in personal and business settings.
While e-mail and search are two of the most important applications associated with computers and networks, there has been very little intermingling between such applications. For instance, if an e-mail message includes terminology that a user is unfamiliar with or includes text in which a user wishes to obtain more information, such user typically must open a search application and manually execute a search for a word or phrase. Requiring such manual searching can negatively affect user-experience with respect to an email application as well as a search function, and often a user will not search to avoid inconvenience, leaving the user ignorant with respect to information associated with text within the e-mail message. Such problems can exist with respect to any sort of electronic document/communication, including an instant messaging conversation, a text message, and the like.